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A Mississauga mother is looking for answers after her seven-year-old son was allegedly sexually assaulted by another student at his school, and she wasn’t made aware of the reported incident until the Children’s Aid Society notified her days later.

The mother says the school didn’t inform her of the incident, and she only heard about it from the Children’s Aid Society days later. More..

Mother sentenced to 30 years in jail after prosecutors call her
an 'egocentric, manipulative liar'

The Independent, UK, October 20th, 2016

A mother has been found guilty of beating and strangling her
eight-year-old son to death, after he walked in on her having sex with
his grandfather.

Veronica Panarello was sentenced to 30 years in jail at a court in
south-east Sicily after it emerged she had strangled her son Loris
Stival with electrical cables, and thrown his body into a ditch near the
family home.
More ..

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. USA -- The mother of a 10-year-old New
Mexico girl found dead and dismembered told police she
sought men online and at work to sexually assault her
daughter, according to warrants obtained by the
Albuquerque Journal.

Michelle Martens told police that she had set up
encounters with at least three men to sexually assault
her daughter, the Albuquerque Journal reported. The child's death
sparked vigils and outcry across the state.

Martens, 35, told investigators that one of the men
was a co-worker. Two others she met online, including
Fabian Gonzales, 31. He was to be the last.

Martens, Gonzales, and Jessica Kelley -- a cousin of
Gonzales -- all face charges in connection with Victoria
Martens' death.

Police found Victoria Martens' dismembered body last
month inside the apartment she shared with her mother.

According to the warrants, Martens told investigators
she didn't do it for the money. Martens said she set up
the sexual assaults because she enjoyed watching. More..

An Alberta government employee is under investigation after Edmonton
police discovered as many as 60 sensitive files in the province’s
maintenance enforcement program may have been accessed inappropriately.

About 18,600 single parents in
Ontario who rely on both social assistance and child
support payments will see their incomes rise under rule
changes to be introduced early next year, according to
Thursday’s
provincial budget.

Currently, every penny of the
average $280 monthly child support payment to families
on social assistance is clawed back by the government,
meaning children are “no better off” and the parent
responsible for paying may feel little incentive to do
so, the budget notes.

Several options are under
consideration to ensure parents who receive child
support can benefit from more of this income, said a
government official. The change would be in place by
April 2017 at the latest, the official predicted.

Child poverty activists have
been calling for an end to the clawback for years,
pointing to British Columbia that ended the practice
last year.

“Ending the dollar-for-dollar
clawback is stellar news for single parents on social
assistance,” said Jennefer Laidley of the Income
Security Advocacy Centre, a legal aid clinic that
supports Ontarians on welfare and disability benefits.
More..

Spanking debate not black and white

Letters to the editor, January 2, 2016

Letter from Grant Wilson, president, Canadian Children's Rights
Council

Every credible study done with multiple
universities involved has proven that hitting children is
counter-productive to making them into good people. It’s damaging.

It is embarrassing to be from Canada and
have to explain to child rights advocates from other countries the
decision of the Supreme Court of Canada ruling that alllows hitting kids to make it legal which are absurd to say the least.

You could have an expert criminal lawyer
standing beside you advising you while you hit your child and still
be found guilty of assault.

I haven’t met any parenting education
expert other than those from the religious right Americans or those
paid by the Americans who believes hitting children should ake
place.

If you put a bunch of lawyers together in
a courtroom and they debate the issue, you end up with all sorts of
contradictions, dissection of the theme and compromises that are
just wrong according to anyone that actually studied the issue.

Parents need to learn to parent and not
have bad reactions like hitting because they set themselves up for
it by bad parenting.

They have to learn to run family meetings,
democratic parenting principals that cause children to make the
right age appropriate decisions in their lives and they will enjoy
parenting more and have less problems and their children will do
better.

All that happens when you hit your dog or
child is cause it to cower before you to get temporary obedience and
then it goes off and does what it wants later and hates you. Bad
parents are training their children to NOT have patience and to be
elder abusers when they need their children’s support in their old
age and they need their adult diapers changed.

I have yet to have a bad parent who uses
spanking read a good parenting education book or website and then
believe they should continue to hit their child. It’s the bad
parents that can’t be bothered learning to parent properly to help
their own children.

Alyson Schafer is a psychotherapist and one of Canada's leading parenting
experts. She's the author of the best-selling "Breaking the Good
Mom Myth" (Wiley, 2006) and host of TV's The Parenting
Show a live call-in show in Toronto, Ontario.

The media relies on Alyson's comments and opinions. you can find her
interviewed and quoted extensively in such publications as Cosmopolitan,
Readers' Digest, Canadian Living, Today's Parents, and Canadian Families.

Auditor General of Ontario

80% of Telephone calls don't get answered

Payers and recipients do not have direct
access to their assigned enforcement services officer

"There is only limited access to enforcement
staff because many calls to the Office do not get through or are terminated before they
can be answered."

"The Office is reviewing and working on only
about 20% to 25% of its total cases in any
given year."

"At the end of our audit in April 2010, there
were approximately 91,000 bring-forward
notes outstanding, each of which is supposed
to trigger specific action on a case within one
month. The status of almost one-third of the
outstanding bring-forward notes was “open,”
indicating either that the notes had been
read but not acted upon, or that they had not
been read at all, meaning that the underlying
nature and urgency of the issues that led to
these notes in the first place was not known.
In addition, many of the notes were between
one and two years old."

"For ongoing cases, the Office took almost
four months from the time the case went into
arrears before taking its first enforcement
action. For newly registered cases that went
straight into arrears, the delay was seven
months from the time the court order was
issued."

When families fall apart, they can make for the bitterest of enemies. The intensity of their hostility, the
personal rhetoric, the posturing and positioning, and the utter faithlessness of remembrance in the relationship's
good deeds and consequences is a breathtaking phenomenon. It's as if the positive qualities and countless
achievements are struck from history as a revisionist might strike the Holocaust. Into all of this the family court
system wades, often inelegantly. Divorce lawyers drive up the emotional and financial toll of separation and
transformation. Family and friends frequently collude to make things worse.

And when government decides to rear its head, well, it's a mess for all the world to see. Witness the recent
attention on Ontario's euphemistically branded Family Responsibility Office. A job in advertising doubtlessly
greeted the person who came up with its title, because it suggests some sort of feel-good missionary work to hold
together the sanctity of the institution.
More..

On June 9, 2005 the McGuinty government announced the passage of Bill 155, legislation that promised to increase
enforcement, improve fairness and enhance efficiency at the Family Responsibility Office (FRO).

However, the legislation did not address the problem of accountability and, as things now stand, the FRO is a threat to every
Canadian affected by a government regulated support and custody arrangement system. Think of George Orwell's 1984
and you'll have a good picture of how issues are handled at the FRO.

They have legal power to extort money from Canadians, but are not responsible or accountable for their actions.

Last year an FRO staff member decided not to wait for a court date to review the financial status of an out-of-work
truck driver and took it upon themselves to suspend his license because he was, understandably, behind on his
payments, having lost his job earlier in the year. Although he was looking for work, the FRO cut off the only way he
knew of to earn a living. His suicide note explained how he'd lost all hope. Is this what we want FRO to be doing?
More..

Wicked mum murdered son, 8, with electrical cables after he caught her in
sex romps with his granddad

The Mirror, UK, October 19 2016

Vicious Veronica Panarello throttled her son Loris to death and abandoned
his body in a remote gully after he found out about the fling.

The “manipulative” mum, wept as she was jailed for 30 years at a court in
Italy on Monday

A wicked mum who brutally murdered her eight-year-old son after he allegedly
discovered she was having an affair with his grandfather has been jailed.

Vicious Veronica Panarello throttled her son Loris Stival with electrical
cables and abandoned his body in a remote gully after he found out about the fling.

The “manipulative” mum wept as she was jailed for 30 years at a court in
Italy on Monday.

Panarello, 28, had tried to pretend her son had been abducted to cover up
the horrendous killing in November 2014.

Panarello throttled her eight-year-old son Loris to death with
electrical cables.
More..

New Brunswick woman ruled responsible in burning
of baby's body

ST. STEPHEN, N.B. — A New Brunswick judge says a woman who burned and
dismembered her newborn son is criminally responsible for her actions.

Becky Sue Morrow earlier pleaded guilty to offering an indignity to a
dead body and disposing of a newborn with the intent of concealing a delivery.

Judge David Walker ruled Friday that the 27-year-old woman may have been
suffering from a mental disorder when she delivered the baby but that that
was not the case when the baby's body was burned and its remains hidden.

It is not known if the baby was alive at the time of birth.

At a hearing last month, the court heard contrasting reports from the
two psychiatrists. One said Ms. Morrow was in a “disassociated” mental state
when the crime occurred. The other said she clearly planned her actions
and understood the consequences.
More..

Canada's
national "Child Day"

November 20th

Canada's "Child Day" is held on November 20th each year as designated
by the Parliament of Canada in 1993.

It commemorates the United Nations adoption of two landmark documents
concerned with the human rights of all children and youths.
More..

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The Canadian Children's Rights Council does very limited case advocacy and only then, specific to our mandate and current goals. See our terms and conditions.